The original school in the Georgetown district began life as a one room schoolhouse on the hill just north of where the present Route 107 joins Route 7. With the financial aid of the Gilbert and Bennett Manufacturing Company it saw several additions as the community grew, and by 1910 it consisted of four classrooms that were accommodating about one hundred students, but it had outlived its usefulness and really needed to be replaced.
The Gilbert and Bennett Manufacturing Company had long been a champion of supporting its workforce and the community in which it lived. Founder Edwin Gilbert was a man who believed in community, and he put his fortune to use to help those who enabled him to become a wealthy man. In 1902, he constructed a beautiful granite church across the street from his factory using his own funds. In addition, his financial donations helped maintain all of Georgetown’s other houses of worship that served the diversified workforce that supplied the labor to his factory.
Upon his death in 1906, he left his farm and enough company stock to support its upkeep to the University of Connecticut to use as a western Connecticut campus to teach and promote agriculture. He also willed a sizable amount of money for the future construction and maintenance of a schoolhouse that would serve the entire Georgetown community.
A 1911 act by the Connecticut State Legislature established School District Number 10 in Wilton as a “Joint district between Wilton, Redding and Weston.” Funding was supposed to be supplied by all three towns based on the percentage of students from each community. “The whole number of children enumerated in the district shall be taken as the common denominator, and the number of children so enumerated from each town shall be taken as the numerator to determine the fraction each town is required to pay.”
The company believed in educating the children of Georgetown, that is why they had so willingly donated to the continued expansion and upgrades at the school on the hill that overlooked their factory. In July of 1915, the board of directors allocated some of Gilbert’s bequest – $25,000, for the construction of a new school; one that would set the standard for many towns in the years to come.
Originally planned as a two-story building to be built on land the company already owned in Redding, plans were scaled down after construction costs far exceeded the money allocated to the project. Instead, a one story, eight room school was designed, double the number of rooms in the then current school on the hill. The new location would be on three acres of land on New Street in Wilton.
It would be unique in the fact that each classroom would have two doors, one to the interior hallway and another that exited directly to the exterior of the building. Each classroom would also have its own closet, so the children could store their outerwear where it would be instantly accessible. An auditorium inside the main entrance would also an unusual feature; it would have a seating capacity of 400. The basement allowed for future plans to build a gymnasium. Indoor plumbing would be a luxury for most of the children of Georgetown, since almost none of the houses in the village would have been equipped with an indoor toilet and running water in 1916.
Designed by Boston architect William H. McLean (he also designed the 1918 Pequot school in Southport), the final cost of the project was $30,000, all of it paid for by the company.
On September 1, 1916, the Gilbert and Bennett Manufacturing Company transferred ownership of the newly constructed school on New Street to the Georgetown School District. Company President Samuel Miller signed as the grantor. The agreement included a covenant that required the towns of Weston, Redding, and Wilton to maintain the building as a school and make it available as a community building whenever school wasn’t in session. Should they cease using the building as a public school, ownership of the building and the three acres upon which it sat would revert to the company. (Wilton Land Records V.26/p.396-398, Sept.4,1916).
In 1933, by act of the State Legislature, the Town of Weston was withdrawn from the district, leaving only Redding and Wilton. According to a July 12, 1964, article in the Bridgeport Sunday Post, that left District 10 as the only joint district of its kind in the entire state.
Redding ceased sending students to the school in the spring of 1957, as the addition to the 1948 Redding Elementary would be completed for use for the incoming students of the class of 1958.
In 1964, through a mutual agreement, Redding and Wilton decided to disband the joint Georgetown district that held the title to the school. Wilton would continue to operate the Gilbert and Bennett School on its own. In order to transfer sole ownership of the school to Wilton and allow that town to qualify for state aid and conform to then current state practice, Gilbert and Bennett had to file a Quit Claim deed that included none of the original covenants of the 1916 deed. The current deed contains no restrictions on the school’s use or future disposition by the Town of Wilton. Upon releasing Wilton and Redding from their original obligation to maintain the structure as a school and community building, Wilton took free and clear title to the property and Redding received $77,000. (Bridgeport Sunday Post, July 12, 1964, page 106).
At the time the Quit Claim deed was issued in 1964, (Wilton Land Records V.105, p.693-695, June 30, 1964) Gilbert & Bennett Chairman, John H. Mulliken, stated to the press, “We are very gratified that substantially all the terms of the original gift will be carried out in the future.” Exactly which terms he was referring to were never fully explained, but one would have to conclude that the major requirement – that the building always remain as a school would have been paramount in convincing the company to sign the new deed. But without a separate written agreement between the Town of Wilton and Gilbert and Bennett, holding Wilton to the terms of the original agreement could turn out to be a difficult task.
After Wilton no longer had a need to use the New Street structure as a school, the Town decided to lease the building to a privately run educational institution. From 1995 until 2000, the school was leased to the Landmark Academy. The monthly rent amounted to $3,216.66. Oddly enough, the terms of that lease enforced the two most important covenants that were included in the original 1916 deed: that the building be used for “educational purposes only,” and that “the auditorium be made available for other community groups at reasonable times when it is not needed for school purposes by the tenant.” Those two clauses would seem to bolster any argument that the board of Gilbert and Bennett had made that the Town had agreed to abide to “substantially all the terms of the original gift.”
In 2011, the Town entered into a five-year lease agreement with the Georgetown Community Association (GCA) for the aging school building. For a sum of “one dollar and other valuable consideration” the Association would be able to manage and sublet the premises to others (Lease dated April 27, 2011). It would be the Association’s obligation to maintain the premises and pay for any repairs that did not exceed $600. Repairs above that amount would be the responsibility and obligation of the Town of Wilton.
Conspicuously absent from that lease agreement was a clause that required the Association to notify the Town, in writing delivered in a timely manner, of any major repairs that the building might need as soon as the Association became aware of those needs.
The GCA, then operating as the Gilbert and Bennett Cultural Center, continued to lease the building on a month-to-month tenancy after the original lease expired in 2016.
On August 18, 2024, the area experienced the largest one-day rainfall since the October floods of 1955. The old school was inundated with water when the roof leaked. On August 29, 2024, an inspector for the Wilton Health Department visited the premises and determined that the building was no longer safe to occupy due to the serious health concerns regarding the buildup of mold. The Cultural Center and its tenants were ordered to vacate the building.
In her September 4th letter to the Cultural Center, First Selectwoman Toni Boucher stated: “The hazardous conditions include a roof that leaks on a continual basis and requires total replacement, a damaged plumbing system, cracked bathroom pipes and wet walls, amongst other problems. As a result, the building can no longer be occupied.”
There is little doubt this historic building had suffered from benign neglect. The question became: did the Cultural Center simply fail to notify the town that the roof had been leaking for quite some time and the plumbing system was damaged, or was the Town aware of those issues and simply turning a blind eye to the problems because of the large expense involved in resolving them?
In examining the Town of Wilton’s Fifteen Year Bonded Capital Requests that was prepared in May of 2024, there wasn’t one penny allocated to making repairs or renovations on the old Gilbert and Bennett School. Practically every other Town owned building has been slated for some form of capital funding – ranging anywhere from $40,000 to over $3,000,000; yet not one red cent has been called for this building.
As it currently stands, First Selectwoman Toni Boucher claims the Town has no funds with which to correct any of the deficiencies at the Gilbert and Bennett building. According to a January 16, 2025, article in the Redding Sentinel, “A recent assessment estimates that it would take nearly $3 million to bring the building up to code.” That’s $3 million that Wilton is currently either unwilling or unable to pay.
So, what happens now? According to Ms. Boucher, some form of building stabilization might be accomplished, such as temporarily covering the roof to limit further damage (Redding Sentinel 1-16-2025). Meanwhile, the mold would continue to grow, and interior structural components could continue to rot.
Boucher admits there has been talk of selling the building with the requirement that the new owner bring the historic building back up to code. A tall order for any prospective purchaser if the $3 million estimates are accurate.
The good news is that because the structure was made part of a local historic district in 2007 (Historic District 6 in Wilton) and Wilton has a Historic District and Historic Properties Commission, there is some level of protection against demolition or radical exterior alterations.
Chapter 97a of the Connecticut General Assembly covering Historic Districts and Historic Properties reads:
Sec. 7-147d. Certificate of appropriateness: Parking areas. (a) No building or structure shall be erected or altered within an historic district until after an application for a certificate of appropriateness as to exterior architectural features has been submitted to the historic district commission and approved by said commission.
(b) No building permit for erection of a building or structure or for alteration of an exterior architectural feature within an historic district and no demolition permit for demolition or removal of a building or structure within an historic district shall be issued by a municipality or any department, agency or official thereof until a certificate of appropriateness has been issued. A certificate of appropriateness shall be required whether or not a building permit is required.
Simply defined, a certificate of appropriateness means that everything on the exterior of a structure must be in keeping with the nature of the district. For example, in this instance, demolition of the building to make room for an apartment building would be inappropriate for the district and therefore be denied by the commission.
What fate lies in store for this iconic Georgetown landmark remains to be seen. The next few months should be interesting. Some of the facts being presented are indisputable, while others are currently lacking verifiable proof. Exactly how this will play out is anybody’s guess at this point. Hopefully, those in Wilton who value the gift that Edwin Gilbert’s company bestowed upon the Town 110 years ago will convince those whom they have elected to manage the Town to do the right thing.
